Meta

Having seen the thematic cross-referencing I looked at, and solved, 17ac (TUBING) straight away, so should really have been quicker than this; slowness on two of the three long thematic answers was one reason, though these might also have caused trouble for anyone not familiar with the London Underground. One new word for me (FELDGRAU at 4dn).

In his excellent ‘Race the clock’ blog, Tony Sever nominates his ‘music of the day’, so I think I’ll follow suit using something in the crossword in question as inspiration (though I can’t promise my selections will always be to his taste). Today’s music, for obvious reasons: Going Underground by The Jam.

* = anagram.

Across

9

EVENLY (EVELYN with the N moved) – at first I thought ‘name’ was doing double duty, but the wordplay can be read as “‘Man or woman’ (Evelyn) has ‘name’ (N) brought forward”.

10/12

MIND THE GAP – …between the train and the platform.

11/23/6

STAND CLEAR OF THE DOORS PLEASE – the last two words were slow to come here, as I initially thought this instruction ended ‘…of the closing doors’.

14

C + ORACLES – boats made of stretching hides over a frame.

15

DR(OPS)Y – ‘theatre’ as in surgery.

17

TU(BIN)G – ‘A tower of strength’ is clever but set off alarm bells and TUG came quickly.

25/20/ 7/22/24

FOR ALL STATIONS TO MORDEN VIA THE BANK – as are some southbound trains on the 26ac (Northern) Line – but isn’t it just ‘Bank’ rather than ‘The Bank’? I was held up badly by this anagram by stupidly writing in ‘London’ from ?O?D?N, even though the other words were clear.

26

N(OR + T + HER)N

Down

1

POLISH + ED (= ‘leader writer’)

2

WORD (double definition) – will ‘bond’ have tempted anyone?

3

A + DD + SUP (rev. of PUS) – DD for Doctor of Divinity.

4

FELDGRAU (Spoonerism of ‘geld Frau’) – literally ‘field grey’.

5

ME OLD CHINA; (HIM AND COLE)*

8

NU(A)N + C.E. (= ‘establishment’)

13

GOOD TO HEAR; O in rev. of HOT DOG, + EAR (= ‘some corn’)

16

SH(ODD)ILY – ‘shily’ looks wrong, but it’s in Chambers as an alternative spelling.

18

GO HUNGRY; rev. of (GNU + HOG), + RY (= ‘railway’ = ‘lines’)

19

ASWOON; (WAS)* + O + ON

21

TEFL + ON – nice definition (‘able to avoid the blame’). TEFL stands for ‘Teaching English as a Foreign Language’.

22

VE(ST)RY

24

BA(H)T – the currency of Thailand.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 25th, 2007 at 9:11 am and is filed under Guardian.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

3 Responses to “Guardian 24,159 (Sat 18 Aug)/Enigmatist – Tube test”

Also slightly surprised by “The Bank”. Enigmatist being London-based, my guess is that he’s quoting a bit of that slightly garbled language you sometimes get in tube and rail announcements – “Action town” or “Upminister” anyone?